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Matchmaking approach to liver transplants

Melbourne medical researchers say artificial intelligence has beaten doctors at successfully matching donor livers with suitable patients by using similar technology to that which links lonely hearts on dating websites.

Austin Health used existing data to predict whether a donor liver would die soon after being transplanted by mimicking the way dating websites analysed different characteristics to match partners.

They say the algorithm analysed information about donors, recipients and transplants and correctly determined the actual outcome five out of every six times.

It beat decisions by doctors, that had been right four out of every six times.

Austin Health research fellow Lawrence Lau says the study, published in the journal Transplantation, shows machine-learning algorithms can help make more accurate decisions for liver transplant organ allocation.

"At the moment there's really no method to determine the safest and most effective way to use the scarce donor livers," he said in a statement on Thursday.

"It largely comes down to a surgeon's judgement call of who we should give a particular organ to."

The matchmaking machine could help reduce the number of probably viable organs that are being discarded, Mr Lau said.

Donated livers are already in short supply with only 229 donated in the first 10 months of 2016, according to Australian and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry statistics.

The organ-matching algorithm was designed by University of Melbourne's computer systems researcher Yamuna Kankinage.

Austin Health says the next step is to perform a randomised trial where future liver transplant decisions aided by algorithms are compared to unaided decisions.